After another long day in real estate, I chose to share a few thoughts late this evening, around a quote about story that caught my attention earlier in the week. Blogger Melanie Moushigian Koulouris, who describes herself as possessing a gypsy soul, wrote:
“Love your whole story, even if it hasn’t been the perfect fairy tale.”
Because of the work I have been doing, to reclaim aspects of my childhood and rescue my inner child, I can definitely relate to Melanie’s words. One of the most important truths I’ve learned in the last eight years of my journey is that my whole story matters.
For most of my life I distanced myself from portions of my story and myself. I hid away the weird bits and the scary parts and locked away my wee self to keep her quiet and make myself and my life appear more normal.
But who wants to be normal? Where’s the magic and the fun in that?
Just like the fairy tales I adored as a child, I was not the person I appeared to be. The spell I was under wasn’t placed upon me by a witch dressed as an old woman. I cast it. And only I could break it. How truly magical it has been to embrace my whole story, even though it has been far from perfect. The imperfections in my life lend me character and give me compassion towards others.
I purposefully chose the symbol of the glass slipper for my title meme. Cinderella was gifted with those special shoes by her fairy godmother and whisked away to the ball to meet the prince.
To me, those slippers made from glass represented Cinderella’s transparency. She lived a far from perfect life. Her parents were dead. She was being raised by an evil stepmother and bullied by self-centered stepsisters. However, she held onto who she was…a kind young woman whose beauty radiated outward from a loving heart.
Wearing those shoes, and a lovely gown instead of rags, allowed Cinderella’s real self to shine even brighter. Ironically her fears that the prince would not accept who she became when the clock struck midnight muddied the girl’s transparency a bit.
That fear, and the resulting flight from the ball, caused her to step out of the shoes…and back into her former story. She had discovered a new chapter though, a new way to exist. And ultimately Cinderella embraced her whole story and lived as her true self happily ever after.
As a child who loved to run barefoot, I always thought those glass slippers must have been mighty uncomfortable to wear. I wonder now if subconsciously what I really thought was that transparency would be mighty uncomfortable. And I was not ready to be transparent.
Transparency can be scary. To be truly and deeply seen can be both uncomfortable and unsettling.
It’s all okay. I’m learning to love my whole story, the good parts, the not so good parts, the sad and scary and little-girl-lost chapters, along with the fun sections and the exuberant and magical parts. My fairy tale isn’t perfect, nor would I want it to be. It’s all my story. I’m loving myself though it.
And…I’m wearing those dang glass slippers.
